From the course: Cert Prep FAA 107 Commercial Drone License

Operation limitations

From the course: Cert Prep FAA 107 Commercial Drone License

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Operation limitations

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Before you fly, there are some things that you need to check. The aircraft, the weather, the environment, the airspace. You need three statute miles of visibility. You also need to keep a safe distance from clouds, so 500 feet below clouds and 2000 feet horizontally. Now, most of the time people just ask me, what do you mean, 2000 feet horizontally? Imagine there's fog coming your way. I mean, what's fog after all? It's a cloud that touches the ground, so you need to be 2000 feet away from it. You also need to assess the environment. So that just means, hey, I'm going to fly here. I'm looking for people, property, animals and any kind of potential ground hazards, you know, like towers, maybe guy-wires, that sort of thing. Who is responsible for ensuring safe flights? Always the remote pilot in command. Under 55 pounds, visual line of sight. Listen, that doesn't mean that your eyes need to be peeled with the drone. You can look down at your controller, but you need to be able to see the drone, and you're still responsible for avoiding other crafts and obstacles. All right. One drone at a time. There can be only one. One drone at a time. Always yield to manned aircraft. We talked about that. They have people inside. Your drone doesn't. You cannot fly FPV, that's first person view unless you have a visual observer. It's in the regulations. Okay. You don't have the situational awareness if you're wearing goggles. And that's what happens when you're flying FPV. Now altitude, 400. Remember the number 400. 400 feet above ground unless you're inspecting something that you can fly 400 feet above that, as long as you're not 400 feet away from that. You cannot fly a drone from a moving vehicle or aircraft. Could you imagine flying a drone from an airplane? Yeah. Inconceivable. So you can actually operate a drone from a moving vehicle if you're not flying in heavily populated areas. So there's not too many people that do it. You're in the water, yeah, you're doing it. So remember, you cannot fly in controlled airspace unless you have authorization. But what does it mean? Well, the airspace is divided in two; uncontrolled, which means exactly that, nobody is controlling it, and controlled which means it's controlled by air traffic controller. So you're flying in controlled airspace. You need authorization. Listen, it's always about safety. If the airspace is controlled, is because of traffic. If the airspace is uncontrolled, that means that there's very little air traffic, so you don't need anything, just fly. If you're flying in uncontrolled airspace, you still need to abide by the regulations. Let's talk about what needs to happen if you need to fly in controlled airspace. Well, you need to get authorization and you can usually get it through LAANC. You can also get it through the drone zone. And also more on that later. So here's the URL for the drone zone. But chances are that you already were there because you had to register your drone, anyway. And remember, just like there is a speed limit when you go on the road, there's a speed limit for drones, 100 miles per hour, which is 87 knots. If you don't have telemetry, you still need to know how fast you're going. Stay sharp. Obviously, you need to have very good situational awareness. You need to know what's going on around you, but also scan the sky. And the best way to scan the sky is not just to continuously just go from one side or the other of the sky. Concentrate on one side and stay there for one second then move to another part and stay there one second, so not continuously. If you do continuously, you might miss some things. So really the recommended way and the right way, seriously, the safe way is to just look at a part in the sky, stay there for one second and then go like that. Speaking of dangers, let's talk about birds. Have you ever had an encounter with a bird? I have, I was in Alaska, and I swear about 50 eagles went after my drone, 50 eagles. Have you ever seen an eagle up close? They're huge. I mean, just one of those would have had my drone for breakfast. You can be flying anywhere and there's birds anywhere. So these drones that we fly, these small drones are prone to bird strikes. Not just an eagle, it could be a hawk or crows, seagulls. So the best way to avoid them is to keep an eye out for them. If they attack you, land, leave them alone and do not approach them in their nests. But what happens if you hit wildlife or if they hit you? You should report it to the FAA via the Wildlife Report System. You can take one thing from one place to another and get paid for it. But you can't cross state boundaries. You have to keep it in line of sight. And this is set to stone. There are no waivers for that regulation. What I do is that I visit the FAA website and I subscribed to their emails and announcements. There's also social media, an online forum, that you can go to to maintain abreast of any of these changes. There's also drone safety apps. There is continuing education and training that you can go, online courses, workshops, professional associations. There's many industry publications that you can read. I mean, I get a ton of magazines, most of them online. And the FAA does have regulatory workshops and public meetings. You can utilize all of these resources and strategies to stay informed about the latest regulations and ensure that your operations remain compliant and safe.

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